Sci-fi Channel's Children of Dune 351
jazdogg writes "Caught the trailer last night on the Sci-fi Channel for the new Frank Herbert's Children of Dune mini-series. I only hope this series is better than the previous one." I dunno - I liked the last Dune series, and am looking forward to this one.
Sci Fi channel doing more literature? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sci Fi channel doing more literature? (Score:5, Insightful)
I have almost stopped watching Sci Fi due to the constant barrage of bad horror flicks.
David Lynch (Score:5, Insightful)
I didn't read Dune before seeing the David Lynch version. I still thought that it was a hell of a movie, despite its many problems. (I hate Kyle Mclaughlin almost as much as I hate Ben Affleck.) Even having read Dune, the Sci-fi mini-series just left me flat up next to the sheer style of the first movie.
Re:dune (Score:4, Insightful)
After the second book, even the bogus political / religious issues took on a tiresome sameness, rather like the plotions manufactured for each episode of Star Trek. I found them frustrating. He hinted at all these worlds, each of which could easily have been as interesting as Arrakis (I wanted to see a book set on Salusa Secundis) but they all focused around the lame Bene Gesserits.
I hope the SciFi channel has enough sense to stop filming sequels after this book.
SF Mainstay (Score:2, Insightful)
Dune is a part of the must-read list, as far as the first book. The movie/tv stuff paled in comparison.
Before I read another "is there no shame" post, herbert is getting what he deserves: paid. This guy has a trmendous imagination and the motivation to organize it. I support the commercialization of anything, because it means it's popular. Unlike free-as-in-beer software, there is a place for "selling out" as much as possible. Fiction has a commercial lifetime, and capturing the sweet spot is part of the game.
Let the Dune franchise flourish.
mug
Re:dune (Score:1, Insightful)
Dune Messiah? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Beating a Dead Horse? (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree with your point though... the depth and character of Dune can only be poorly represented on the screen. On the other hand, I thought the same thing about the Lord of the Rings, but the Two Towers was very, very good.
The first mini-series... (Score:3, Insightful)
And as for the acting...*sigh*.
Re:Beating a Dead Horse? (Score:3, Insightful)
OK, I'll bite. What?
Seriously, the Dune books are written, they are what they are. No one can take anything away from them. If, as a result of the new TV movies, five people go and read the books who might never have picked them up, great! It's not like Frank Herbert is still writing 'em and some new populist direction derived from the TV shows is going to somehow alter a greatness that might have been or the greatness that is and was.
With luck, the shows will be wildly successful, a new generation of people will read the novels, and the dim expectations of a youth culture made to believe that the likes of "Farscape" or "Babylon 5" constitute the best SF has to offer, simply because they're a tick above the Star Trek/Star Wars "Happy Meal" fodder, will be raised.
I don't think the Fantsy genre has been ill-served by Peter Jackson's reverent treatment of LOTR. If anything, it means that the public tolerance for a "Sword and the Sorcerer II" has been lowered drastically. All good.
I thought they were cutting back? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:dune (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems to fit, for me, with the interwoven theme of prescience. Paul was cursed by his prescience, and Leto's vision of the future was of humans who were immune to prescience. The end of Chapterhouse, in which Duncan and Sheeana fleeing the known universe in a no-ship, seems to symbolize Herbert's creation escaping beyond the limits of his own vision.
But what the hell do I know, anyway?
Re:SF Mainstay (Score:3, Insightful)
Nooooo! Say it ain't so! (Score:2, Insightful)
Now zip forward a decade or so and I keep hearing about Sci-Fi doing their version of "Dune". The majority of opinions I hear say it's pretty good. I eventually get around to renting the DVD, and you know what? I had to force myself to watch the whole thing. It's that bad. The costumes are lame (someone here made a comment about the costumes being stolen from "Liberace's closet". That's a pretty accurate statement.) Their use of soundstages are far too obvious (A lot of the backdrops look like they were painted by high-school kids.) and a majority of the acting was just piss-poor BAD. Whenever Alec Newman (Paul Atreides) spoke, I cringed as if someone were running their nails down a chalkboard. William Hurt slept through his role as Leto, seemingly there to collect a paycheck and nothing more. I could go on and on. But what I don't get is how I seem to be in the minority! Hey, if people want more "Dune" and Sci-Fi is willing to give it to 'em. So much the better. Just don't expect me to counting the days until the sequal airs.
Re:I liked the SCI-FI treatment of Dune (Score:3, Insightful)
The miniseries format gave them more time to let the story play out than a movie. The pacing was good (unlike the Lynch movie, which took an hour to get through the first hundred pages of the book and then had to rush to cram the rest in). The sets, costumes, and effects all worked. And I liked all the actors (especially the woman who played Chani).
steveha
Re:Last Dune Series (Score:5, Insightful)
How many people do you know has *even* read Dune or, for that matter, Children of Dune? I've read both of them, watched both versions of Dune, and each has their strengths and weaknesses.
If we're going to nitpick, I'll say this
Neither are true to the book anyway.
Hopefully, Children of Dune (which is the destruction of Paul's dream and Aila's nightmare) will be done in the same spirit and I can understand the pitfalls of smaller studios - at the end, it's how much money do you have to burn for the production?
Cheers...
Re:Read Dune, Then Stop (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't blindly accept the parent poster's judgement. Even if general experience suggests that sequels are often weak, Dune is a series where I have specifically noticed this odd exception.
Re:Boycotting Sci-Fi Channel because of Farscape? (Score:2, Insightful)
Give Scifi Channel Some Credit (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:dune (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually. If you look at when the man died (1986) not long after finishing chapterhouse and before it's publishing (July 1986) you can kind of tell that he knew he wouldn't be writing another book as he was finishing the sixth and just kind of tied things up quickly so as to not leave anything open ended.
I get the impression that he just kind of gave up on living or at the very least knew he didn't have much time. Chapterhouse near the end starts to seem that it is being rushed. Not as much lush detail in his words as in the beginning etc. Of course, this is my opinion and there are a million of 'em.
Re:Boycotting Sci-Fi Channel because of Farscape? (Score:2, Insightful)
Interesting.... (Score:2, Insightful)
There was great hype about the SCI FI Channel's production of Frank Herbert's Dune when it was released. I remember a great portion of SCI Fiction oriented websites were debating the merits/demerits of both productions with regards to Herbert's own literary work. I find it only natural that the debate would continue about the next production. Oddly enough, I find the Dune series (literary works) intriguing. Very rarely do you find the creation of such works so very rich with detail. So complete is the marriage of ecology, religion, political intrigue, and human nature into the fabric of the Dune series that there is virtually no gap in the story. The underpinnings and background of the Dune universe leave no question of "how", "why", or "who" in the story. I plan to reserve my comments on whether the new SCI FI mini-series will be good or bad until after I've seen the show. Besides, SCI FI could do much worse in picking a literary work to produce as a mini-series.
Anybody read the prequels by Brian Herbert? Thoughts?
Please, God, No More Sound Stages! (Score:3, Insightful)
This may sound shallow, but what absolutely DESTROYED the miniseries for me were the desert scenes. I can understand that some scenes have to be done on sound stages. However, those backdrops couldn't have been more obvious if they had painted images of Tux the Penguin on them. I watched those scenes, and all I could see were those damned backdrops. I never felt I was watching characters on Arrakis. I was watching characters on a cheap Hollywood soundstage pretending to be Arrakis.
I remember reading somewhere that they intentionally did that, to make it seem more unreal. Well, guess what, guys? It didn't just look unreal, it looked FAKE. I'll watch Children of Dune, but I seriously hope they learned from their past mistakes.
Just my $.02...
Re:dune (Score:4, Insightful)
Still, Chapterhouse feels almost as if it is grasping at threads the entire time, and the ending does seem like it wants to be a new beginning, and it might have worked better with a 7th book, but I guess I can't fault the man for dying.
So in an imperfect world I need to choose between thinking of book 5 of 6 as the end, or book 6, which feels more like the first part of an unfinished sequel to the series. But then again, some time back I think Tim O'Reilly made a good point; the last three books basically build off of and restate the lessons that we as readers, and Paul as character should have learned from the first, so maybe after Children of Dune they're all unnecessary.
But personally God Emperor is my favorite